Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Fresh Fruit & Whipped Cream

Part of the reason I love cooking and baking so much is that it’s an easy, fun thing to share with others. It’s a lesson I learned from my Mema as a child – not from anything she ever said, but from watching how she showed love by feeding others. And so, when a sweet friend’s birthday was approaching last week, I knew I wanted to make a dessert to celebrate her special day.

As soon as I heard that my friend loves pound cake I knew immediately that I wanted to make her a creamy pound cake decorated with fresh whipped cream and fruit. This is a tradition my mom and I started together over a decade ago, using angel food cakes as our base to place fruit in pretty patterns. It’s beautiful and delicious, and it’s a unique look to dessert that will be the hit of any party.

You can have a lot of fun with the fruit; I used kiwi, strawberries, and blueberries, but we’ve used raspberries and blackberries before, too. You can use the fruit to create an initial, for instance, or go with a more graphic pattern like I did:

If you’re not a baker, you can very easily replicate this cake by buying an angel food cake from your local bakery and going from there. I hope, though, that you’ll give my cream cheese pound cake a try, because it’s rich & dense & oh-so-good.

Oh, and see that hole in the middle of the cake? I take 1 cup of whipped cream and 1 cup of finely chopped strawberries, mix those together and fill the hole so I end up with a nice flat top for the whipped cream and other fruit.

This is a great summer dessert, and a real show-stopper to bring to parties. You can get your kids involved with decorating, too – they’ll love coming up with patterns for the fruit, and they can snack on the leftovers as much as they want.

And really, if this cake doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will.

In a large mixer bowl, on medium speed, cream the room temperature butter & room temperature cream cheese until very smooth, at least 5 minutes.

Add sugar ¼ cup at a time, streaming the sugar in as the mixer continues to work at medium speed. Beat until the mixture is very airy, at least another 5 minutes after all the sugar has been added.

Add vanilla, and then add one egg at a time, then lemon juice and lemon zest, continuing to mix until everything is well incorporated.

In a separate medium bowl, sift the all-purpose flour and corn starch together well; then add to the wet ingredients a little bit at a time with the mixer continuing on medium speed. Mix just until the flour is evenly distributed through the batter.

Pour the batter into the bundt pan, and place on the middle rack of a COLD oven. Turn the oven to 300 degrees F (325 degrees if you have a light-colored pan), and bake for at least 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check with a toothpick for doneness. If the cake isn't done, continue to bake 10 more minutes and check again.

Whipped Cream:

While the cake is cooling, mix the powdered sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream together in a cold metal bowl (I place my bowl and beaters in the freezer before I make whipped cream). Beat on high until peaks form, then place the whipped cream in the refrigerator until the cake has cooled.

Putting it all together:

Spread the whipped cream over your cake, filling the hole in the bundt cake with more fruit and whipped cream. Have fun placing fruit however you like to create a beautiful pattern.

Hi there! This sounds soo scrumptious!! I am nee to baking, i don’t have a standing mixer can i use a hand held mixer to make the cake? And can i ise a regular cake pan or does it have to be a bundt pan?

Hi Jenn! You can use a hand mixer, for sure. And you can use a regular cake pan but just be sure and check your cake more frequently, as bake times will differ based on the type of pan you use. Hope you enjoy it – and have fun with baking… it’s easy to get hooked!